GET BRENT

Bart Maverick got shot in the town of Bonita, as seen in the 'Maverick' episode "Seed Of Deception"; and brother Bret made sure that those responsible wouldn't get away with it. As he lay recuperating, Bart said to his brother, "Getting revenge for an only brother?"

To me, Bart seemed clear-headed, not whacked out on medication for his wound. So he was apparently in his right mind when he inferred that he had no other brothers except for Bret.

And yet Brent Maverick, as played by Robert Colbert in two 'Maverick' episodes, was presented as one of the Maverick brothers on the show. In one of those episodes, "The Forbidden City", Jack Kelly also appeared. And he probably introduced Brent as his brother. There's also the publicity picture still floating around of Kelly and Roger Moore in costume as Bart and Beau with Colbert as Brent (looking like a poor man's Bret... a wooden, robotic Bret.) Had Brent tried to pass himself off as a Maverick without official support, Toobworld Central was ready to play it out four different ways. One, that if he was a Maverick brother, he was Beau's brother. He wouldn't need a British accent - Beau picked that up as an affectation after spending a decade in England, banished for an indiscretion during the Civil War. (He became a war hero.)

The second splainin was that he was passing himself off as a Maverick, but was in fact Cherokee Dan Evans, the character he played in the episode "Hadley's Hunters" (one of the greatest contributions to TV crossovers ever.)

The third option would be to claim that he was an android similar to Hymie the Robot from 'Get Smart'. (Dick Gautier - now there's an actor who could have pulled off that 'Maverick' mojo!) But O'Bviously we'd never fight for that pozz'bility. Otherwise we're wandering into the territory of "The Wild Wild West Revisited". Blerg. Finally, and the most enticing to a fan of the TV Universe mosaic, he was actually Dr. Doug Phillips, a time-traveling researcher at the top-secret Project Tick-Tock underneath the Arizona desert, as seen in 'The Time Tunnel'. For just those two episodes he had been separated from his associate Dr. Tony Newman and so was hiding in plain sight until they could be reunited. To get Bart to go along with the idea must have cost Dr. Phillips something in return....

But sadly, Brent was presented as a son of Beauregard "Pappy" Maverick and that puts the kibosh on all those theories, while at the same time it presents a Zonk with Bart's statement that he and Bret were the only brothers.

But it's easily splained away: Brent is a half-brother to Bret and Bart, the product of one of Pappy's indiscretions. Talk about a "Seed Of Deception"! And so, at the time of the episode, the Maverick boys didn't know they had a brother.

Easy peasey.....
BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: JOHN F. PARKER

JOHN F. PARKER

AS SEEN IN:
'Branded'

AS PLAYED BY:
Chris Alcaide

From Wikipedia:
John Frederick Parker (May 19, 1830 – June 28, 1890), was one of four men detailed to act as United States President Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard on April 14, 1865, the night Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s theater.

He was responsible for guarding the entrance to the president's box. He is known to have at first stayed at his assigned post, but then wandered away in order to catch a glimpse of the play. During the intermission, Parker went to a nearby tavern with Lincoln's footman and coachman. It is unclear whether he ever returned to the theater, but he was not at his post when John Wilkes Booth shot the president. Parker was charged with neglect of duty and tried on May 3, 1865 but no transcripts of the case were kept. The complaint was dismissed on June 2, 1865. Parker remained on the police force until 1868 when he was fired for sleeping on duty. He died in Washington on June 28, 1890.
But he didn't spend all those intervening years in Washington, D.C. He traveled the West, where Edwin Booth finally caught up with him with the intent to kill him.....

BCnU!

BONITA: GRAND VIEW

In the 'Maverick' episode "Seed Of Deception", Bret and Bart find themselves mistaken for Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday in the town of Bonita. No state was mentioned, but I'm thinking (never a good thing) that it could have been Bonita, California. Mention was made that Bonita was on the way to Yuma, and the Maverick boys could have been traveling East.

Yuma automatically makes one think that it must be Yuma, Arizona, and the sheriff's mention that Jim Mundy has a spread down near the border seems to be an indication that they're close to the border of Mexico. Both Yuma and Bonita run along the same line parallel to the Mexican border. Also, Sheriff Bill McPeters mentions that should the bank in Bonita lose the contract for storing the mining payroll, it would be to the profit of the bank in Central City.

Just a bit north of Bonita, at least according to Google maps, there's a Central, California, which appears to be a suburb of San Diego. It could be that in Toobworld, this is Central City, the town that was a rival to nearby Bonita.

Why should that matter? Because I want to make a theoretical link between 'Maverick' and another show, that's why!

In the pilot episode of 'The Flash', Barry Allen chased a bus in downtown Central City, only to end up in the surf at Crystal Beach, 30 miles away, a few seconds later. On the map, the distance to the California shoreline looks reasonable from Bonita. Everything else about Central City has that California feel, so that's where we're going to say it is. And with that, we're going to claim a geographical link between the Mavericks Bret and Bart with Barry Allen! BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: NED BUNTLINE

NED BUNTLINE

AS SEEN IN:
'The Life And Legend Of Wyatt Earp'
AS PLAYED BY:
Lloyd Corrigan

From Wikipedia:

Ned Buntline (March 20, c. 1813 – July 16, 1886), was a pseudonym of Edward Zane Carroll Judson (E. Z. C. Judson), an American publisher, journalist, writer and publicist best known for his dime novels and the Colt Buntline Special he is alleged to have commissioned from Colt's Manufacturing Company.

"The More You Know"

BCnU!

WESTVIEW: ERMA CURRAN

Erma Curran was a 19 year old newlywed, married only a week to the gunslinger Kid Curran when they met up with Beau Maverick in the episode "Red Dog". The infatuation with her husband had already faded from her eyes as she made a play for the Brit-tinged gambler down by the water hole the next morning.

The Kid wasn't going to stand for it though and that next night he dragged her into the back room of an old shack and beat her mercilessly. More than likely he probably raped her as well. The other men - Buckskin Charlie King, Wolf McManus, and Judge Reese - did nothing to stop the abuse; as the Judge saw it, she was his woman. (Beau couldn't help her; he was tied up. But it makes me wonder - what would he have done, had he been free? Mavericks aren't likely to get into fights if they can help it.)

Bearing the bruises from the Kid's treatment, Erma got her revenge by helping Beau escape and riding off with him into the mountains. There she grabbed his gun and shot her husband dead when he tried to ambush them. At the end of the misadventure, Charlie King offered the newly-minted widow the opportunity to ride along with him, saying that he always had a soft spot for such a woman.

It was probably his undoing.

I'm not looking at the prospects of their future together with the naivete of the original 50's viewing audience. I'm sure that each night on the trail, Charlie and Erma shared the same bedroll - the way Erma looked, I'm sure Charlie wouldn't have waited for permission to enjoy her pleasures. And I'm thinking it wouldn't have been long before Erma found herself pregnant. (For alls I know, she was pregnant from that night in the shack when she was raped by her late, unlamented husband.)

Erma was a conniving vixen and I'm sure she realized that Buckskin Charlie King was worth more to her, not as a protector and lover, but as a bounty. (According to the Western Gazette, which carried a full page picture of Buckskin, he had a $10,000.00 price on his head.) At the first chance she got, Erma probably turned him in for the reward, before her pregnancy became too much of a hindrance to her scheme.

When she finally had the child, most likely a boy, Erma decided to give him Buckskin's last name, perhaps even his full name of Charles King. And with that $10,000.00, she may have started a ranch of her own, perhaps in Arizona. If so, she may have named it "The Flying Crown Ranch." Eventually, the Flying Crown would be inherited by her son and then by his own son, Schuyler - also known as "Sky" King.

And for those of a certain age, 'Sky King' was a high-flying rancher in the 1950's who had plenty of adventures in the "clear blue of the western sky" in his plane "Songbird" with his niece Penny.

And so that theory of "relateeveety" provides a possible link between 'Maverick' and 'Sky King'!
BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: CHATO

CHATO

Birth:
1854, USA

Death:
Aug. 13, 1934
Ruidoso
Lincoln County
New Mexico, USA

Native American Tribal Chief. A Chiricahua (Great Mountain) Apache Chief and warrior, he led raiding-parties along with Apache Chiefs, Bonito, Victorio, and Geronimo killing settlers in New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexican territories. Eventually he surrendered along with Bonito to General George Crook and components of his 6th Calvary on May 29, 1883. After surrendering he became a United States Army scout and led an expedition into Sierra Madre Mexico. Chato also led a peace delegation to Washington, D. C. and was awarded the silver medal by President Chester Arthur. Prior to relocating himself and his family to the Mescalero Apache Reservation in Ruidoso New Mexico, he served as an army scout at Fort Sill Oklahoma for a period of time. Chato died of complications due to an automobile accident in August of 1934. (bio by: Bedford W. Sipes)

for Find A Grave website

AS SEEN IN:
'Cheyenne'

AS PLAYED BY:
Charles Horvath

BCnU!

INFINITE JESS

"THIS IS THE PLACE - J." proclaimed a hand-painted sign in a cave which Beau Maverick stumbled upon in the 'Maverick' episode "Red Dog". It was a sign to some desperadoes that they had reached the meeting place where "J" would reveal his plan for them all to partake in a big score.

As Beau soon discovered, "J" was a man named Jess, according to the others. But at the end of the adventure, he asked Judge Reese exactly who Jess was, and the old rake slyly dropped the full first name as "Jesse". It was an inference that Jess was none other than Jesse James.

But it was the Judge who forged the letters urging the meeting, in hopes of taking in all three outlaws for their various bounties. So it was a form of Famous Individual Syndrome, in which somebody impersonates a famous person for their own benefit. It's something that happened quite often to the reputation of Jesse James in Toobworld.
For example, here are two bumblers who tried to pass themselves off as Frank and Jesse James only to run afoul of a 20th Century reporter and a stranded Martian.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: THOMAS H. RYNNING

THOMAS H. RYNNING

AS SEEN IN:

'26 Men'

From Wikipedia:

Thomas H. Rynning (February 17, 1866-June 18, 1941) was an American law enforcement officer, warden of Yuma Territorial Prison and a captain in the Arizona Rangers, serving as head of the organization from 1902 to 1907.

Resigning his position with the Arizona Rangers in March 1907, he was appointed superintendent of the Yuma Territorial Prison by President Howard Taft and later had the prison moved from Yuma to Florence, Arizona.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: SAMUEL CLEMENS

SAMUEL CLEMENS

AS SEEN IN:
'Bonanza' AS PLAYED BY:
Howard Duff

SAMUEL CLEMENS

AS SEEN IN:
'Riverworld' (2010 version)

AS PLAYED BY:
Mark Deklin

The reason for the change in appearance? The Mark Twain to be found on the Riverworld planet was the original soul encased in a new body - still made of human genetic material, but artificial; it's not the original DNA. And it could be changed with each re-birth, which is why Mark Twain looks different in the 2003 mini-series of 'Riverworld'.

Two for Tuesday!

BCnU!

PLAY TIME

When Erma Curran met Beau Maverick, she thought she remembered him to be a stage actor. Apparently, when she was fifteen years of age, she saw a play performed in Virginia City and she thought Beau had been the star of that production.

As Erma was nineteen in the 'Maverick' episode "Red Dog", that would mean she had been in Virginia City four years before.

So let's figure out when that was, and maybe even what show she saw! (Or at least who was in the show....)

Let's start with the timetable from the 'Maverick' point of view......

Beau Maverick had been banished by his Uncle Beauregard, the patriarch of the family, from the United States at the end of the Civil War for bringing shame upon the family. His crime? He had become a hero and won a medal. And even though he did so inadvertantly, it made no never-mind to Pappy.

So Beau went off to England to serve his sentence of five years. The Civil War ended in 1865, so Beau should have returned by 1870. However, I think he ended up staying longer; one reason being that he picked up an English accent while over there. (Beau claimed it was only a slight accent, but it was quite heavy to the American ear. This may be why Erma thought Beau was a stage performer - his diction. Although I think she was more interested in that first syllable, if you know what I mean. Nudge nudge wink wink!) Another reason is the timeline for the entire series. Unlike other shows which are usually set in one location, 'Maverick' traveled all over the Western frontier. That takes time to get from one place to another. Unlike 'Kojak', it's unrealistic to think an episode of 'Maverick' can take place a day later than the last one, or even a week later if that's the way a detective show or medical drama wanted to play it.

So in those three seasons before Beau made his debut, a lot more time passed for Bret and Bart than three years. I think we can still bring in Beau's debut to be in 1871, but I'd be more comfortable if everything was brought forward in time even more.

The same rules of an inner chronology would apply to Beau: For his half of the episodes in the third season, at least a couple of years may have passed and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that by the time of his last episode, "Red Dog", it was 1875.

That would mean that Erma Curran saw a theatrical play in Virginia City in 1871 when she was fifteen. And we have just the episode of 'Bonanza' to match to it......

Bonanza: The Iron Butterfly (1971.11.28)
Mariette Hartley .............. Lola
Stefan Gierasch ............... Grady
Allen Garfield ................ Charlie
Jack Collins .................. Mayor
John McCann ................... Bennett
Red Currie .................... Driver
Mills Watson .................. Fontaine
An affair has Hoss risking his life to protect an actress involved in a murder.

There's a general rule of thumb in dating a 'Bonanza' episode - under the sweater but over the bra. No, wait that's Gene Hunt's rule of thumb for dating in general.

The general rule for the 'Bonanza' chronology is that each season represented a year in the Cartwright lives exactly one hundred years previously. So an episode that was broadcast in 1959 took place in Toobworld back in 1859.

"The Iron Butterfly" aired in 1971, so therefore it took place in 1871 and fits in perfectly with the "Red Dog" episode of 'Maverick'. When Erma Curran was in Virginia City, she went to the Piper Opera House where she saw "Romeo And Juliet" starring Miss Lola Fairmont... and an actor whom she would later mistake for Beau Maverick.

Miss Lola Fairmont

BCnU!

MUNDY MORNING HOLLIDAY

Jim Mundy owned a spread twenty miles south of Bonita, near the border, and he was always suspected of crimes like rustling. Mundy and his men used their reputations to intimidate the people of Bonita, and he had designs on stealing the miners' payroll from the town's bank. (All of this was depicted in the 'Maverick' episode "Seed of Deception".)

And he must have been a master of disguise, fooling even Wyatt Earp!

When he heard that Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were in town (although they were really Bret and Bart Maverick), Mundy mentioned that he was first cousins to the Clantons.

This would splain why Jim Mundy was also one of those Doctor John Holliday impersonators found throughout the Old West.

Doc Holliday is one of those historical figures who was plagued by copycats, people with FIS (Famous Individual Syndrome or Famous Impersonator Syndrome) who could only find attention for themselves by pretending to be somebody else. This was an epidemic situation in the Wild, Wild West, where reputation was something to be desired. Even Charles Dickens fell victim to it - he never got past the Mississippi on his American speaking tour, and yet there he supposedly was in Virginia City with the Cartwrights, as seen on 'Bonanza'!
By the end of "Seed Of Deception," yet another Doc Holliday impersonator had shown up in Bonita, one who had dealt with the Mavericks at least one other time in the past and who also had been spotted in 'Tombstone Territory'.

There was a long stretch of time when Doc Holliday wasn't around in Dodge City, and Jim Mundy took advantage of that to spy on Wyatt Earp for his kinfolk the Clantons. They must have known the lawman was planning on leaving Dodge to go clean up Tombstone and the Clantons probably wanted to know who they would be up against if they wanted to keep to their lawless ways. So they sent Jim Mundy in to impersonate Doc while he was gone in order to gather "intel" on Earp.

And apparently Wyatt Earp never noticed; either that, or he was playing the long game in order to see what this impostor's ultimate plan was.
Eventually the real Doc Holliday returned, this time to Tombstone, and Jim Mundy snuck back to his ranch near Bonita, California. There he finally met his match in the Maverick brothers and was caught red-handed trying to rob the town's bank.

Jim Mundy was probably an old man by the time he got out of prison.....
BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: MR. HENRY COMSTOCK

HENRY T. P. COMSTOCK

AS SEEN IN:
'Bonanza'

AS PLAYED BY:
Jack Carson

From Wikipedia:

Credit for the discovery of the Comstock Lode is disputed. It is said to have been discovered, in 1857, by Ethan Allen Grosh and Hosea Ballou Grosh, sons of a Pennsylvania clergyman, trained mineralogists and veterans of the California gold fields. Hosea injured his foot and died of septicaemia in 1857. In an effort to raise funds, Allen, accompanied by an associate Richard Maurice Bucke, set out on a trek to California with samples and maps of his claim. Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock was left in their stead to care for the Grosh cabin and a locked chest containing silver and gold ore samples and documents of the discovery. Grosh and Bucke never made it to California, getting lost and suffering the fate of severe hardship while crossing the Sierran trails.

When Henry T. P. Comstock learned of the death of the Grosh brothers, he claimed the cabin and the lands as his own. He also examined the contents of the trunk but thought nothing of the documents as he was not an educated man. What he did know is that the gold and the silver ore samples were from the same vein. He continued to seek out diggings of local miners working in the area as he knew the Grosh brothers' find was still unclaimed. Upon learning of a strike on Gold Hill which uncovered some bluish rock (silver ore), Comstock immediately filed for an unclaimed area directly adjacent to this area.

In June of the year Peter O'Riley and Patrick McLaughlin made their find, Henry T. P. Comstock learned of the two men working on land that Comstock allegedly had already claimed for "grazing purposes". Unhappy with his current claim on Gold Hill, Comstock made threats and managed to work himself and his partner, Immanuel "Manny" Penrod, into a deal that granted them interest on the claim.
BCnU!

PAPPYISM POSTING

For this two-week salute to 'Maverick', let's get things started with something simple - "Pappyisms".

"Pappyisms" are these sayings that supposedly originated with the father of Bret, Bart, and Brent - Beauregard Maverick.

When Cousin Beau uttered one of these bon mots in "Red Dog", he O'Bviously attributed it to his Uncle Beauregard. No way would Beau think of the family patriarch as "Pappy". After all, the Mavericks are from Texas, not Arkansas.

From the episode "Red Dog":

"Some men are afraid of the dark and some are afraid to leave it."

Despite the presence of both Bret and Bart Maverick in "Seed Of Deception", no Pappyisms were employed.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: HORACE GREELEY

Horace Greeley said, "Go West, Young Man!" and that's what we're going to do in what has now become the traditional look at historical figures of the Old West As Seen On TV.

So who better to kick off the rush than Mr. Greeley himself?

HORACE GREELEY

AS SEEN IN:
'Branded'

AS PLAYED BY:
Burgess Meredith
(seen here with Jason McCord played by Chuck Connors)

From Wikipedia:
Horace Greeley (February 3, 1811 – November 29, 1872) was an American editor of a leading newspaper, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, and a politician. His New York Tribune was America's most influential newspaper from the 1840s to the 1870s and "established Greeley's reputation as the greatest editor of his day." Greeley used it to promote the Whig and Republican parties, as well as opposition to slavery and a host of reforms. Crusading against the corruption of Ulysses S. Grant's Republican administration, he was the new Liberal Republican Party's candidate in the 1872 U.S. presidential election. Despite having the additional support of the Democratic Party, he lost in a landslide. He is currently the only presidential candidate who has died during the electoral process.

In a July 13, 1865 editorial, he famously advised "Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country." Some have claimed that the phrase was originally written by John Soule in the Terre Haute Express in 1851, but it is most often attributed to Greeley. Historian Walter A. McDougall quotes Josiah Grinnell, the founder of Iowa's Grinnell College, as saying, "I was the young man to whom Greeley first said it, and I went." Researcher Fred R. Shapiro questions whether Greeley ever used the term at all and cites, instead, an occurrence of Greeley writing "If any young man is about to commence the world, we say to him, publicly and privately, Go to the West" in the Aug. 25, 1838, issue of the newspaper New Yorker.

BCnU!

SOUP'S ON!

Mark Evanier, whose "News According To ME" blog can be found listed to the left, claims that using a picture of a Cream Of Mushroom Soup can is an "ancient" internet symbol meaning that a blog will be on hiatus for awhile. But so far, I've only seen it used in three sites - Mark's, Ivan's "Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear", and here at Inner Toob.

Oh well. Here we go again......

It's not going to be a true hiatus. I'll have stuff set up to be posted while I'm gone. It just won't have any spontaneity.

Here's what's going to happen when Toobworld Central goes on vacation again this year:

There won't be any particular theme to the "As Seen On TV" gallery, but we will continue to run that feature with the focus on historical figures from the Old West, as we traditionally do during the month of August.

But as an added treat, there will be an occasional Tiddlywinkydink which will be centered around my all-time favorite TV Western - 'Maverick'. And to make it more interesting for myself (Who cares about you.), I've set myself the challenge to write only about the two episodes I recently saw at the Paley Center for Media: "Seed Of Deception" and "Red Dog".

Writing about 'Maverick' is easy for me. Getting fourteen stories out of just those two episodes? "Tricky", as Deep Thought once said. Some of them may only be the most tangential references, but at least they'll be connected.

Hopefully that'll keep you coming back until my vacation is over......

BCnU!

"It's going to be a long, dry summer...."

Charley Plank

'Maverick'